Smart Array P212 (email reporting & rebuild time)

[its-admins]

We have a Smart Array P212 in a ProLiant DL320 G6, running RHEL5-AS x86_64.

We are seeing two issue with this RAID controller.

1) setting up email reporting, so an email will go out when a drive fails, is proving to be way more difficult than we think it should be. The controller BIOS has no email reporting, so reporting must be OS dependent. Finding a simple utility that let's us configure email reporting seems to be impossible. We either have to create our own scripts in combination with the hpacucli utility to have the OS send out emails, or install the SIM onto another server and setup that service to monitor the controller in question. Both those options are a ton of work for simple email reporting. Is there any better way to do this? $40 controller at best buy have email reporting on them, why can't the 212?

2) We recently lost a drive in a 2TB RAID mirror on this controller. The rebuild priority was set to high, yet the rebuild took 4 days. That's absolutely nuts. A $40 controller at best buy can rebuild the same 2TB in less than 24 hours. What gives? Is there any way to decrease the rebuild time even if the rebuild priority is set to high?

Sincerely,

ITS-Admins

[Johan Guldmyr]

1.) hard?

1. download this nagios plugin: http://exchange.nagios.org/directory/Plugins/Hardware/Storage-Systems/RAID-Controllers/check_cciss--2D-HP-and-Compaq-Smart-Array-Hardware-status/details 
2. put something like this in crontab: */30 * * * * /path/check_cciss